League must diversify to boost U.S. success

Intelligent, young and motivated, urban and hip.

Willie O'Ree, left, the first black to play in the NHL, shakes hands with hockey great Bobby Hull after the NHL's Diversity Luncheon on Friday.

By:Kevin McGranSPORTS REPORTER, Published on Sat Jan 26 2008

ATLANTA–Intelligent, young and motivated, urban and hip.

An African-American living and going to school south of the Mason-Dixon line.

At 21 years of age, Jonathan Davis is the kind of sports fan the NHL covets. There's just one problem.

"I love basketball, I grew up playing basketball, that's part of my culture," says Davis, a Clark Atlanta University student originally from New York City. "If you can show me how the NHL is like the NBA, I will definitely be there."

In what might sound like an odd twist, the NHL is asking Davis, and marketing students from predominantly black Atlanta-area colleges and universities, to come up with a plan to sell the NHL to African-Americans.

The easy answer is to have more blacks play the game, says Davis.

"Everybody wants to relate to somebody," he said. "If you get more black people in touch with the game, it's going to be amazing."

So it was that the NHL yesterday celebrated the achievements of Willie O'Ree in front of a cavalcade of Atlanta's leading citizens and civil rights activists, including Martin Luther King III.

O'Ree broke the NHL's colour barrier in 1958 when he suited up for the Boston Bruins.

A school choir sang a rousing ode to O'Ree, praising him as a hero and a prayer of thanks was held before lunch, hailing O'Ree as a trailblazer along the lines of baseball great Jackie Robinson.

O'Ree, at 72 a charismatic and engaging man, had perhaps the best line in talking about racism in hockey to a predominantly black audience.

"I heard the N-word so often I thought they were paying me a compliment," he said.

The league, searching for relevancy in a market divided by race, seemed to strike a chord with the locals with the theme "Hockey Is For Everybody."

"Atlanta is a very diverse city, and it's important we show our diversity," said NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly. "Events like this show hockey can have a broad-based appeal."

Halfway through its third season since the lockout, the NHL is starting to bounce back from "afterthought" status in the American consciousness.

The record-breaking TV ratings for the Jan. 1 outdoor game in Buffalo proved Americans would watch.

The NHL is doing its utmost to grow the game in non-traditional American markets, and it realizes the many problems: You need arenas, limited in southern states. You need equipment, an expensive outlay for many families; and you need to be diverse: An almost all-white league just doesn't cut it.

The NHL's diversity program, with O'Ree at the helm, aims to provide ice time and equipment throughout urban American centres at no cost to kids or their families to at least give them a taste of the game. That will help the league set the groundwork for future fans. For now, the NHL is wallowing in markets such as Atlanta.

The Atlanta Falcons' hiring of a GM dominated local sports news yesterday. The all-star game is estimated to bring in $20 million (U.S.) to the city of Atlanta, but that is little more than a blip on this burgeoning city's financial radar. And it pales in comparison to the $49.6 million brought in by the 2000 MLB all-star game or the $34.3 million brought in by the 2003 NBA all-star game.

And it's not even the biggest convention in town this weekend.

That would be the International Poultry Expo, holding a three-day congress and taking up 25,000 hotel rooms, compared to 20,000 for the NHL.

Seeing as it kick-starts NBC's coverage of the league, the all-star game should be a flashier event. It would help if some of the game's biggest stars would take the time to show up. Understandably, Sidney Crosby has an ankle sprain that will keep him sidelined for two months, a devastating blow to this event's marketing department.

But two of the best goalies in the league – Roberto Luongo and Martin Brodeur – opted out.

"It's something we have to look at in terms of freshening this whole event," said Daly. "It's a platform event for us and we have to do what we can to make it a premier event."

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